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Notes -
I agree with your "[willpower]>[forces against]" framing. Two things I want to add to that. First, you can modify both ends of the equation. Using your willpower makes it stronger. You can modify your situation to remove forces against. Second, I think there's a fuzzy split between willpower and what I'm going to tentatively call agency. Willpower seems like actively resisting or continuing: Keeping up a run or powering through the last set. Agency is more like starting in the first place from inactivity. Calling up someone to be a gym buddy, or getting off the couch. I think we have more of a crisis of agency than of willpower.
your description of agency vs willpower seems to be a distinction without a difference to me; I don't see any reason to differentiate between the mental process that has you starting a thing against resistance vs continuing a thing against resistance except for magnitudes, similar to increasing the velocity of an object from 0 to 1 vs increasing it from 1 to 2; it's all just force applied. Perhaps the magnitude of willpower required to start exercising can be greater than the magnitude required to keep exercising when you already are, but it seems to be the same process to me.
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